"Supreme art is a traditional statement of certain heroic and religious truth, passed on from age to age, modified by individual genius, but never abandoned." William Butler Yeats

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Cutting Your Face With Glass: Evil Dead & the Flesh-Bound Book Of the Dead

A case can be made that Evil Dead is anti-capitalist: Mia's drug addiction she vows to end at the start of the film could be taken as the addiction to materialism/consumerism advanced by films such as Looper, 21 Jump Street, Side Effect and Young Adult, that Americans are addicted to “having” and we need to be broken of that addiction; socialists also argue that capitalists have no free will, we are possessed by the will of advertisers who dictate our buying habits for us, so the "possessed" in the film are actually ignorant capitalists struggling to get a will of their own. Likewise, now that the Obama Administration's second term is well-established, the demon “coming back” could easily be read as the old ways of capitalism and the rule of Republicans. It could be argued that the demon (socialists don't believe in the spiritual realm, they advance atheism) the film employs symbolizes the right wing who would understand that symbol as itself(Republicans are the demon) and bringing back "those people" (the right wing) who believe such things is as bad as the thing itself (the demon). So what establishes the film as anti-socialist?
The opening scene.

There are probably numerous references to horror films I missed, but let's at least introduce the topic here. As we have discussed previously, originality isn't always a good thing; only very narrow-minded critics look for "originality," instead of searching for the reason why aspects of stories keep recurring. When a film triggers your memory that "I've seen that before," it intends to do it, it wants you to have your memory stimulated so it can incorporate that movie being invoked in with its own narrative, that's how films create inter-textual dialogue amongst themselves; film makers know you have see films, they know you have seen horror films, so not only is it a reward when, as the implied viewer, you can say, "Hey, that's coming from Psycho!" but as well, you can now access a greater piece of the puzzle of the film and include Psycho references as well. Again, I am not going to get nearly all of them, but in the second opening scene, when the jeep drives through the woods, that must be invoking The Shining; the sequences of the demon "running" through the forest come from An American Werewolf in London; when Mia drives the station wagon away from the cabin and sees the figure on the road--this has been done many times--that references The Haunting; when she drives the car into the pond, doesn't that remind you of Psycho? With a name like "Mia" and a needle being stuck in her heart to bring a heroin addict back to life, can you not think of Pulp Fiction? The voice of the demon seems to come straight from The Exorcist, especially some of the things the demon says. Why would a horror film in 2013 be invoking such older horror films? One reason is it wants to say the same things those horror films said. When, for example, you want to make a point, you might quote some famous person to substantiate and validate your claim, it lends credibility to your position, and the same is true of art when it wants to say something, it invokes tradition and great works of art to validate what it's doing. Secondly, it wants to become a part of that tradition which came before it, it wants to invoke its "family tree" of films which gave birth to it and remark on family resemblances by saying its part of a continuation it's going to continue in the arena of art that battles over good and evil. Consider, if you will, the "original" Warm Bodies, where the hero is a zombie, where--traditionally--heroes fight zombies. Referencing other zombie films is rather "illegitimate" because what zombie film would claim such a "bastard" as its offspring? (We have discussed this all ready with World War Z so I am skipping this for now). Anyway, the invoking of Psycho through a not-as-famous scene (the car in the pond) is interesting because it demonstrates the non-Hitchcockian references: there is a shower scene, quite unlike the Psycho scene, during which the possession "process" has started for Mia but she hasn't been "taken" completely; one of the signs of deepening possession, according to the book of the dead, is pouring scalding water over yourself; Mia, showering with all her clothes still on, turns the water heat up full power, turning up the furnace as well and receiving second or third degree burns as a result. The complication of this scene, symbolically, is that the "shower," just as in Psycho, is meant as an act of cleansing (Janet Leigh's character seems resolved to return the money she stole before taking her shower, and can then shower as a sign of her confession and being cleansed of guilt) but it appears to be turned into an act of self-mutilation (the scalding of the skin), which of course is a sin; but is that what this scene means? What if Mia has an intuitive understanding of what Eric has to read in the book, that purgation by fire is a way to exorcise the demon from her, and "burning" herself with the water is a way of freeing herself from the demon's hold? This would explain the camera's cuts to the fire in the furnace, that Mia has placed herself in the furnace which her brother David couldn't do. David breaking in and "saving her," continues the quaking grounds of morality on which the film constantly keeps the audience. Should David have allowed Mia to burn herself to death in the shower? The context of that question surrounds the film in an ever-deepening pit, as a lack of action by the spiritually lethargic characters makes battle against the evil hunting them more difficult with every scene, and also the reason why the film is so genuinely well-constructed.

The dark woods, foggy, and a young girl stumbles through, obviously being hunted by some kind of menacing presence. She's captured and taken to some dark place where,... demonic hillbillies (?) are preparing some kind of bizarre ritual; let me tell you, these people are bizarre looking, then her father appears, and refuses to let her go, accusing this sweet, innocent girl of killing her mother. He dumps the gasoline on her and lights the match, and then, then the demon possessing her comes out full force and we see “her” as she really is, up to that point wondering what evil power has hold of the father, who then shoots her and she dies. How on earth does this define the film as anti-socialist?

Who are those crazy people in that opening scene? Me. Those crazy people being superstitious, killing the innocent, and speaking gibberish are people just like myself who see that the country has been “possessed” by an evil and it must be exorcised but have been demonized by liberals who commit countless character assassinations against us and belittle us to looking like those crazy people in the beginning of the film. Remember at the end of Ice Age 4: Continental Drift, when Scrat the squirrel finds "Atlantis" and everyone there is so enlightened and lofty in their ideals? That's how the left portrays itself, the intellectuals, while the right and those who are religious are ignorant and physically deformed, and Evil Dead joins them because it's the teacher Eric and the professor at the end credits scene who "opened the book" letting out the dead" while it was the "ignorant" who were smart enough to see that possession happened and how to end it. In the image above, the entire cast is present. Front stage is David, Mia's brother (Mia, the drug addict, stands in the doorway with the dog Grandpa at her left side); Natalie, the blond and David's girlfriend, is on Mia's left while Olivia the nurse is on Mia's right and Eric is at the left in the image with the back pack on. The cabin they are at was in David's and Mia's family, but they have just realized someone broke in there (the weird looking people from the beginning who performed the exorcism).

The girl, as always, symbolizes the future of the motherland; the dead mother, of course, is the murdered motherland and the father is the “founding father” or the tradition of the country. All we have to do is ask, “What is it in our country currently that has murdered the 'motherland' that would require the founding fathers of this country to kill the 'future?'” We have seen a very similar narrative in the Disney Best Animated Feature Oscar winner, Brave, with the young girl despising her mother and revolting against her. When we look at Evil Dead in these stark terms, it's easy to see how the youth of today (the girl possessed by the demon) have been “possessed” by the socialist movement (the demon) prompting them to murder the motherland of America (the anti-communist motherland that has always fought against socialism and go against the Constitution) and causes the "founding fathers" to kill a future (of socialism) that has destroyed all this country has been for so many (a refuge from the evils plaguing the rest of the world). Please recall also that we saw the children killing the parents in The House At the End of the Street.

This scene is the first time we see Mia and she describes herself to David as looking like "roadkill." Sitting on the car in the back of the cabin, we see her sketch of the cabin before we see her, reflecting her artistic skills. During this scene, David gives her a buck thorn necklace that is supposed to strengthen her will power. Mia comments that David doesn't believe in that and he responds that she does and that's what's important. The necklace takes on layers of meaning throughout the narrative because Mia rips it off from around her neck at one point, then, at the end of the film, puts it back on. Recall please, that towards the end, Eric stabs David in the neck with wire cutters (I think that's what they are, but it's a tool like that) then, after she has defeated the demon at last, Mia finds the necklace and puts it back on. The neck invokes the things will lead us on, the thing(s) acting as a "leash" in our lives that leads us on our path and prioritizes our decisions, for bad or good. Mia's taking the necklace again at the end of the film communicates to us that she will become more self-reliant rather than depending upon David and her friends (who are all now dead) but who she needed for encouragement and to supply the discipline she couldn't on her own (which fuels the moral dilemmas in the film). The boots Mia wears in this scene are important because they are the ones David puts back on her feet before burying her alive to cleanse her. The feet symbolize the will itself, because our will directs our footsteps in life, so Mia gets the will to break her heroine addiction at the end in a stronger way because she lost it during the course of events because of the demon (and she can now call upon her experience of how easy it was for the demon to control her because of her addiction) so the boots illustrate for us on a different level that, like the buck thorn necklace, Mia is determined to break her addiction and will be successful this time. We might as well also touch on the red dress David puts on Mia when he's burying her. We don't see this dress at any other point in the film, it just suddenly turns up out of nowhere, but we can say that--because David has made it this far into the horror film--this is an act of virtue on his part, he dresses Mia in his love (red) for her, rather than him making a commentary on Mia's appetites for drugs (red is also the color of the appetites). In spite of everything, in other words, David loves his sister and what he does, he does in hopes that she will rest in peace, whereas when David didn't return to see his mother dying from mental illness, there was only his self-love of not wanting to see what was happening rather than being there for his family. It's possible that the car in the image above is actually a reference to the original film from 1981, but I am not sure.

Another way we can definitely say Evil Dead is anti-socialist is because--like all good horror films--it condemns sexual activity outside of marriage, including oral sex. How does this make it anti-socialist? Socialists want freedom from sexual restrictions because they see those norms as coming from the Church, and a way to appeal to feminists is through their appetites for sex, which of course turns them against religion which condemns such practices. Socialists want to work against religion because religion teaches each person has dignity and is endowed with an immortal soul, which puts the government at odds with God when a government decides to abort children or sterilize the parents to control the population and resources. In other words, people become livestock under socialist governments, to regulate and control according to figures and statistics, not ideals and morals. There are at least three graphic references to sexuality in the film and the first one is with Mia.

As noted earlier, we have seen a similar situation with Snow White (Kirsten Stewart) in Snow White and the Huntsman when Snow White escapes into the Dark Forest and becomes ensnared in vines and branches therein. The Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) reveals to Snow White that the forest feeds off her weakness and fear, and Snow White's purity (one of the Dwarfs says she is "life itself") is stronger than the forest's darkness so she is able to overcome the forest; Mia is not Snow White, however, and in this scene above, the forest literally rapes her. The vine crawls up her dress and then she screams horribly so we know that Mia's possession has been "consummated" because she is so impure, unlike Snow White. Once again, a forest such as this is an apt symbol for a soul in a state of sin (and that's mentioned several times in the film) because, instead of the single, barren "tree" of the Cross of Christ's self-denial and holy virtue, a soul in a state of sin has not denied themselves worldly pleasures, creating a forest of each of their twisted sins, illustrated by the vines (and this is why Mia uses a chainsaw at the end of the film to free herself from the demon because the demon is like these branches and vines).

Mia tries desperately to get away from the demon when she realizes something strange is going on. After Eric has opened the book the first time, and begun the "summoning procedure," Mia suddenly gets sick as the demon "jumps" inside her, vomits and says, "Please God, give me a break," thinking she is going through heroine withdrawal, but then she sees the "girl" (the demon in bodily form) standing in the woods. Vomiting is an act of self-cleansing, the body trying to rid itself of something poisonous, and liquids coming from the mouth signal throughout the film that the person is now going through the initial phase of possession, even as the body tries to cleanse itself of the "invasion"; but this isn't a physical invasion, rather, a spiritual one (even though the body is involved), and that's why Mia's vomiting isn't sufficient to cleanse her. But this request, "Please, God, give me a break," is the closest thing in the film to a prayer, and it happens just as Eric utters the "cursed prayer" summoning the demon, and might be the only real reason why Mia is the only one who survives.

Why are there so many dead cats hanging in the basement? Eric keeps calling the basement scene "witchcraft," and the hanging corpses of cats probably refer to female sexuality since it's rather openly discussed in the film (especially between Natalie and the demon) and they were placed there by the weird people at the beginning performing the exorcism on the girl. Remember, a house symbolizes the soul, so what is in the house--or the condition of the house--in some way is meant to communicate the soul of the character(s). The cabin has been abandoned, so we can say the same of the souls of the five friends who go there, they have abandoned the care and maintenance of their souls. This is where it's tricky, but we have had occasion to examine this before: what is a virtue for one, is a vice for another, so the weird people who exorcised the girl at the start, left the dead cats (female sexuality) but those sins the cats invoke are there as the sins of the five friends staying at the cabin. We can see this in the book, too. The book helped the weird people exorcise the demon but it releases the demon for the five friends. Basements, furthermore, are particularly symbolic of the baser appetites, the lower-animal passions we harbor in our unconscious (we bury them in our minds so they are "underground" the way a basement is underground) which is why Mia, when she's possessed, gets locked down in the basement, that's where her greatest strength over the others lie, in their animal appetites (we will discuss this more with each individual character). When the friends have been in the cabin for only a few hours, Mia complains about the awful smell none of the others can detect, but Grandpa the dog finds the trap door leading to the basement. This is one reason why Mia (once she's been possessed) kills Grandpa with the hammer, he can detect that it isn't Mia anymore and would probably kill her/the demon, unlike the demon's power to control David and the others through manipulation. Remember that, when Mia is possessed, she tells Natalie she can smell her filthy soul, so when the possession has only started taking hold of Mia, it's like she can smell the filth on her own soul (the rotting corpses in the basement) and she can't stand it. Mia herself had been a corpse when she overdosed the summer before, as Eric points out, so Mia shares that state of "being" with the dead cats.

So, Mia--like Regan from The Exorcist--is "possessed" by the demon several times and it's possibly because it mirrors Mia's progress in drug addiction, that she started overcoming it at different points, but then would succumb to it again and on a deeper level. Besides Mia's rape scene, there are two other graphic references to sexuality and both involve Natalie. Possessed Mia tricks Natalie coming into the basement to help her and, when Natalie does, possessed Mia returns to her demonic state and accuses Natalie, saying I can smell your filthy soul and Mia starts licking Natalie and then there is the box cutter scene,...

The rule of a play is, if you are going to have someone stabbed to death in the third act, you have to introduce the dagger used in the first, and the electric knife seen above follows that traditional wisdom: we first see Natalie using it to cut a ham, which--because they are going to "eat" the ham--offers a graphic play-on-words for the dehumanizing aspect of oral sex the demon accuses both Natalie and David of: treating each other like a piece of meat (the ham). The cutting off of her arm is an impressive act of heroism on Natalie's part, proving her to be stronger than one would imagine because she doesn't have a big role. Her arm, shown here, was bitten by the possessed Mia and became infected with the evil, the evil spreading. This is a literal illustration of the Scripture when Christ says if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off; it's better to enter heaven with only one arm then to go to Gehenna (hell) with two. The problem is, Natalie didn't sin with her left arm (the arm she cuts off) but with her whole body in having extra-marital sex, and there is only one way to remedy that: confession, and she doesn't confess her sins (Eric does confess that he read from the book and what he did is the cause of the evil befalling them, and that stalls Eric's demise which seems so certain so many times, but Eric finally dies because he fails to take his confession to the next level, more on that below). The amputation works for a few moments, but it doesn't stop the possession from taking over because she's all ready been possessed by David (sexually; Natalie takes a nail gun David had used earlier and attacks David with it because he "nailed her" in bed, and her sexual relations with David made a dishonest woman of her, a whore, and thereby she was "defaced" which is why Natalie gets nails in her face, no one respects her for sleeping with David, so she has "lost face"). Just as Mia might have been trying one of three ways to exorcise the demon from herself in taking the scalding shower, so dismemberment is a way to destroy the demon and Natalie might be trying to do that in this scene. There is, however, an even more compelling interpretation of this scene, because it also ties in with Mia (after she is exorcised) tearing her hand from her body and that is a capitalist theory of economics. When there is a sick member, it must be cut off, for example, the auto industry should not have been bailed out with public funds, rather, they should have been forced to heal themselves or "die off" like Natalie's infected arm rather than artificially maintained with taxpayer dollars. This is important because at the end, the demon rolls the jeep onto Mia to trap her, and Mia's hand is caught beneath the jeep, but Mia tears her hand off and frees herself, and that's what the country should have done, as well. As Natalie cuts her arm off, Mia the possessed (under the trap door) threatens her, telling her, "Don't cut it off! Don't cut it off!" Why? Because that's what liberals always say, "Don't cut them off of public funding! Don't cut the budget!" Everyone deserves every cent of public assistance they can possibly get and no one should be cut off from anything.

I originally suggested that the box cutter Mia licks and slices her tongue on (pictured below) might reference the 9/11 attacks when box cutters were used; that's possible, but having seen the context of the situation, I don't think it's probable, rather, because "box" is a slang term for the female genitals, and--like the male erection--the box cutter comes out and increases in size, possessed Mia offers a spiritual interpretation of oral sex and why it is that Natalie's soul is filthy (which is why, after she licks it, she tells Natalie, "Kiss me, you dirty cunt." Anyone wanting to contradict this interpretation is welcome to, however, what is it that possessed Mia says to David when he realizes Natalie is trapped down there with her? "Why don't you come down here and let us suck your cock, pretty boy (the third graphic sexual reference we need to note)?Your little sister is being raped in hell (quite a moment from The Exorcist)!" In The Cabin In the Woods, I felt the same thing was going on, and a number of men argued with me about it; so you are welcome to, however, you have to alter a counter-interpretation of this if you think I am wrong, so good luck with that.

The odd thing is, the devil always keeps better track of our sins than we do, the devil catalogues each and every sin we commit and is there ready to accuse us of each of them. We have seen this, not only in The Exorcist with Father Damien, but more recently (last year) with The Devil Inside and Father Ben and Father David. This plays into the moral ambiguity created by the film but, on a political plane, it demonstrates how our moral weakness as a society has permitted us to be overtaken by the demons of socialism: if we weren't addicted to sex as a society, people wouldn't think they needed abortion, and if we were more spiritually oriented, we wouldn't turn to the momentary pleasures of drugs to alleviate the sadness in our souls. Everything each of the five friends are guilty of in the film, we are guilty of as a culture either because we participate in it directly, we tolerate that behavior in others and/or we fail to pray for the moral healing of our country, which leads us to another reason for possessed Mia cutting her tongue on the box cutter: the tongue--and gift of speech--was given to us to praise God and bear witness to Him, not mis-use in sexual acts or taking His Name in vain. How, if at all, does the film support this? When Eric is working at opening the book, there is a perfectly clear shot of a picture of Moses holding the Ten Commandments on Eric's right side. The picture is shown several times (I want to say there is another icon image by the bathroom door when Eric goes in to see Olivia cutting her face, but I didn't get a god look at it) but, if we miss Moses, we can't miss the lightening that comes down, striking the tree and catching it on fire, like the burning bush to which Moses spoke containing God (more on this below in the discussion with David).

Now we know why the book from which Eric reads is bound with human flesh: the book is bound together (stays together) by sins of the flesh and those sins have been committed by the women in the story (I am female myself, please remember that). Mia's drug addiction and Natalie's sexual sins are only part of what allows the male demon (the demon is referred to as "he" in the book of the dead) to take a female body because women are the vehicles of socialism spreading in a society; how? Women want to have sexual freedom, which socialism grants them because a socialist government looks at them as animals, although feminists mistake that for "equality" and feminists "need" abortion and free birth control to secure their sexual freedoms which socialist governments are also happy to provide because it puts them in charge of population control; but what about Olivia, what's her sin?

Please click on the composite image to enlarge. On the left is Olivia washing her face after possessed Mia has vomited blood all over her; that mirror on the medicine cabinet cracks and Olivia takes medicine to put Mia in a coma but is stopped by the demon; Mia urinates on herself and becomes possessed, taking a piece of the glass from the broken mirror and cuts into her face (center), then goes after Eric (right) when he discovers what she's doing in the bathroom and he falls on a piece of flesh (?), falling backwards, hitting his head on the toilet and breaking off a piece of the sink, which he uses to bash Olivia in the head and kill her. So, what does this mean? Olivia might symbolize those doctors of economics who have mis-lead us about what is really wrong with the economy and, instead of confessing they made mistakes, they try to lead others into their own false logic (possession spreading from Olivia to Eric). A point of justice the film seems to make is, as Olivia goes to administer the coma-inducing drug to Mia, she is stopped and urinates on herself. Why do we do that? It's possible that she is so scared she has peed herself, meaning that she is fully experiencing the horrifying possession Mia has undergone so Olivia knows, without any doubt, that nothing was wrong with Mia as Olivia was diagnosing her. Throughout the start, Olivia ascribes everything Mia experiences to her heroine withdraw, so Olivia losing control over her bodily functions is another "act of justice" against her defacing Mia to everyone has now happened to her.

Pride.
As a professional woman in the medical field, (as Natalie blatantly says), everyone is following Olivia's advice on possessed Mia just suffering from heroine withdraw, not that she is demonically possessed. Olivia, in insisting that there is nothing "the hospital could do that I am not doing" for Mia after David wants to get her away from there, allows her professional narrow-mindedness to slowly destroy Mia, which is why possessed Mia vomits blood all over Olivia: Mia's blood is literally "on Olivia" because (at this point in the story) Mia is going to die because Olivia fails in her diagnosis. That's why the mirror of the medicine cabinet shatters when Olivia is looking into it, she's looking into herself, and she sees that she's covered in Mia's blood (guilt) but she won't confess she has done the wrong thing, even though Eric confesses that he "did a terrible thing," Olivia won't confess she made a mistake so she "loses face" and cuts herself with the glass (glass symbolizes reflection of the interior life, while our face is not only our identity in physical terms, but also how others see us). Eric is able to defeat her with the sink because a sink is a part of the cleansing process, so Eric takes the sink (his confession he will make) and beats down Olivia's head (her pride) as she slithers like a snake across the floor to possess him next.

Please click on image to enlarge. On the left is the book of the dead closed, the cover bound with human flesh, as we learn from the post-credit's voice over of the archaeologist who discovered the book in Sumeria on his dig. Why is this important information? Two reasons. First, that is where Max Von Sidow's character is (modern day Iran) at the start of The Exorcist, so Evil Dead invokes the The Exorcist to establish that the Evil Dead demon comes from the same place. Due to the censorship of political correctness and the liberal left, I am not at liberty to comment upon the second reason a demon coming from modern-day Iran would be important but, ask yourself, what do you think of when you think of modern Iran? There are references to this throughout The Exorcist and I think it was intentional. We talked about the dead cats in the basement symbolizing female sexuality, however, there is another aspect to them: curiosity killed the cat is a popular saying and it applies to Eric's sin. As he first opens the book, we see the image of Moses holding the Ten Commandments, clearly, without a doubt, Eric allows himself to be misled into studying the book of the dead instead of studying the Ten Commandments of life. This intellectual perversity (being upside-down, like the forest we see starting the second act of the story) of Eric's gets four people killed (it can also be argued that Eric also commits an act of pride, that he is too intelligent to study the Bible, and any knowledge that is forbidden must be good). What saves Eric (at least for awhile) is his humility in confessing that he did "a terrible thing." We have to admit, Eric sustains injuries that--in the real world--he would die of quickly, but accumulating virtue allows him to continue, like in a video game when you pick up an extra life, the life of grace restores the death sin brings upon us. So why does Eric die? He won't forgive David. If we don't forgive others there sins against us, God does not forgive our sins against Him. Eric "goes off" on David, turning on him with a litany of David's failures in abandoning his family and friends and David's faults in general. If Eric had been more forgiving of David, Eric could have made it but, as such, he died to serve as an example to all of us harboring grudges against others how deadly a grudge can be. Now, we have discussed, on at least one level, what the book is in its referencing The Exorcist, but there is at least one more possibility: it's the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx. Most Americans--myself included--consider socialism/communism dead because it doesn't work, not only did the Soviet Union collapse, but even in countries like North Korea, China and Cuba, the people are kept in such miserable conditions of marital law that the government which was supposed to be for the people and free the workers, has only increased their slavery: just because socialism still exists, doesn't mean it is alive as a viable form of government, and anyone wanting to argue with me about it is more than welcome to leave America and go live in China or North Korea and see how you like it. So, just like Resident Evil: Retribution resurrecting the dead Nazi (socialist) and Soviet soldier zombies, Evil Dead shows us a book being resurrected by the intellectuals (the liberals who look down on everyone) and fail to heed the countless warnings of what they are "unleashing." Why would the Communist Manifesto be bound in human flesh? Because of the countless people who have died due to it, not only from wars waged to prevent its spread (World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War) but the people who have been put to death by their own governments implementing socialism (Stalin alone killed millions of Russians in the name of communism, not to mention the people who died in the October Revolution and the Gulag, and the Chinese have killed millions of their own people, and North Korean leaders don't hesitate to let their people starve so they can fund their nuke program). So what about the stitches on the book? As I mentioned, we might be able to "judge the book by its cover" that the stitching on the outside displays how what is on the inside is also "stitched together" and not a coherent system, rather just a bunch of ideas that don't form a natural whole (given that Eric tells David there are contradictory passages and nonsense, this makes sense). But it's also from the book that we learn how to undo the evil the book unleashes, and that's true of the Communist Manifesto as well. To exorcise the demon, it either has to be one, buried alive, two, purged by fire, or three, dismembered. Dismembering, which is what ends up happening, is symbolic of how a government needs a head (the head of state), arms (the strength, leaders to carry out orders, a military to defend), legs for will and direction and the torso, the body over which the members rule and govern. When a government is "dismembered," it can no longer exist. The purging by fire refers to the trials we endure in life to purify us and help us rid ourselves of imperfections, so the trial, let's say of Obamacare, could be that, once it's put to the test and not just some "stitched together" idea taking up 1500 pages, but actually exists, we'll realize it's not a good idea under the heat of fire and get rid of it. The other way is to bury it alive, or not give it a chance to infect anyone else, but let is suffocate in its own grave.

There is still a great deal more which can be discussed, however, I am going to limit myself to only two more topics: why David dies and Mia lives. David not only makes it through, but manages to save his sister as well, up until he goes back into the cabin to get the car keys so they can get to the hospital. David makes mistakes and commits sins, however, his virtuous love for Mia is great enough that he survives up to this point, so, what happens? He commits the same sin as an Old Testament character,...

Why is there a flood? We saw floods in both The Impossible and Beasts Of the Southern Wild, so we can take the abundance of rain to emphasize the economic storms of 2008 but, also, because of the picture of Moses, and David is named for an Old Testament character, we can also see it symbolically as Noah's Flood, when the sins of mankind flooded the earth and destroyed them but for those in the ark. David seems pretty dense through most of the film, but when he resolves to do something, he does it, and one "miraculous" moment might be the cause of it. Again, as I mentioned, we see Moses and one of the many famous episodes of Moses' life was God appearing to him in the Burning Bush. In my post on The Passion Of the Christ, and Cecil B. DeMill's The Ten Commandments, we discuss how the Burning Bush was an illustration of Moses' own soul burning with love for God, but Christ upon the Cross was the Tree burning with Love for God the Father and humanity. In Evil Dead, lightening strikes a tree and sets in on fire, but it doesn't seem to burn to a crisp, it stays lit long enough for David to get possessed Mia buried alive so her soul can be cleansed. Why? David is being ruled by love in this scene, he's not letting the guilt-trip of the demon carry him away from his real purpose, to save his sister; it's tempting to drown in the guilt the demon names as David's sins, but wisely, David confesses he was wrong and finishes his task, and just as "love's first kiss" resurrects Sleeping Beauty and Snow White in fairy tales, so her brother's genuine act of self-less love resurrects Mia because that is the moment of David's life he most closely resembles Christ giving Himself on the Cross. David's love, however, is not perfected love, and this is a hard lesson many readers might criticize me for, but David's imperfect love causes him to miss his friends who are part of what led him astray and kept him from God and Life. Again, this is a hard lesson, but the advantage of art is that it can show us instead of just telling us, and the characters in the film could not have become possessed by the demon if they were not all ready, so the way, for example, Olivia looks in the photograph David stops to look at, was never how Olivia looked, she always looked like that yellow-eyed face slashed demon because that's how her soul always looked. If we could see what sin did to our souls, we would never sin, and that's the role art is meant to fill in our lives, to show us our very selves as we really are, not in our idealized forms we prefer to see ourselves in and only let others see us as.

Lot's wife.
The nameless wife of Abraham's nephew Lot disobeyed God and, as they were fleeing the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, she looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. Why? Lot's wife was "preserving" (salt is a preservative) the worldly pleasures of Sodom and Gomorrah, not the mercy of God in delivering them; likewise, after David has the keys, he is walking out but turns back to look at a photo of the five friends and remembers them; if David had not done this, possessed Eric would not have had time to get to David and strike him because Eric didn't have a gun or the nail gun, only the wire cutters, and whereas David cut "the wires" of his family bond when his mother was dying, he failed to cut the bonds to those who have died in the cabin. Yes, I know this seems harsh of me to say, but I am not saying it, the film is, again, if David didn't stop to look at the photo, he could have made it out. As The Cabin In the Woods validated through painstaking articulation, there is an order to the horror-film universe, and each character who dies, dies for a reason, i.e., they are all ready dead, and we the audience have to avoid becoming dead like them, that's why we watch horror films, to learn those lessons. David hasn't learned that lesson, he preserves what should not be preserved, and we can say this because the demon requires 5 souls to feast on for blood to start raining from the sky and it starts raining so that's the note that David did indeed fall to the demon.

One of the classic, recurring motifs of the horror film is someone running and then falling when the nightmare villain is after them. Why can't people in horror films run? They fall because of "The Fall," the effects of Original Sin which keeps them (as characters) pursuing worldly pleasures rather than holy wisdom. I discussed this at length in my post on the original Scream film because it ties into that adage in Christianity that we must "run the good race" or become sinful sluggards who, like the characters of the horror films, trip and fall when our lives most depend upon us being in "good moral shape." The same happens to Mia before she has become fully possessed at the start of the film, and then again, at the end of the film, after she has been resurrected and has to escape the demon a second time. Both times, the effects of Original Sin upon Mia's soul are obvious, however, towards the end, she is cloaked in the red dress--the garment of love--so she is "enlivened" so that she can make the choices she needs to make, like sacrificing her hand so she can escape and cutting into the demon's head with a chainsaw so she won't be "governed" by her sins anymore (the head symbolizes the governing function).

Why is it possible for Mia to be brought back to life? Love. The very love of David for her Mia spends so much of the film denouncing exists is the very love that gives life back to Mia, and this exists in a larger context. I have been pointing out how there is an increasing, counter-culture masculinity at work in films, and David sacrificing his life for his sister adds one more notch on this angle: Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters, Shame, The Cold Light Of Day and Rise Of the Guardians (Jack Frost protects his little sister), all feature sibling relationships highlighting a more traditional role for men protecting women as they would protect their sisters instead of exploiting women as sex objects for their appetites. David messed-up in his relationship with Natalie, but makes up for it be defending Mia and saving her. Mia, for her part, knows the bitter taste of death now (what it means to sin and how her drug addiction was killing her soul) and, just like Edmond in The Chronicles of Narnia using his experience with the White Witch to protect himself from future failings, so Mia succeeds in putting her whole self to fighting the good fight for her soul against the evil trying to take her over.

Why a chainsaw? I am sure there is another horror film reference I am failing to pick up, but I can say that it correlates with Mia being stuck in the forest at the start of the film. Just as I said the dark forest symbolizes the life of sin and worldly pleasures ensnaring Mia in sin, so now she has a chainsaw to cut herself free from those snares, and she does it. If she didn't realize how terrifying the sin was, and she experienced what it was doing to her, she would be unable to gather the strength to do what has to be done, just like David not having the strength to burn possessed Mia earlier.

In conclusion, there is far, far more to the film than what I have been able to write here, however, I hope--as always--these few notations will prompt you to see the film if you haven't all ready and help you in formulating your own interpretation and understanding of the story so you can engage with it in a more artistically, rather than blindly consuming it as entertaining or not entertaining. All art embodies lessons for us, but horror films especially, and Evil Dead gives us much to consider within its own textual limits but also in the ways it connects to and reminds us of other horror films, continuing a tradition I hope doesn't die.
Eat Your Art Out,
The Fine Art Diner

The lesser known ad poster for the film, I like it because it ilustrates "perversity," a concept we haven't used it awhile. When something is morally turned upside-down, it's perverse; when the second act begins, and we see the trees of the forest surrounding the cabin, we are upside-down, alerting us to the perversity--or upside-down--morals we are going to see.

About Me

This blog is dedicated to the glory of Jesus Christ.
Email thoughts and comments to thefineartdiner@gmail.com.
Please note: there is never just one correct interpretation, and I know that, I just rarely mention it nowadays; please do not think that, just because I have chosen to post one interpretation over another, doesn't mean that I think my interpretation is exclusively correct or other positions not possible. I would also like to point out that, we are living in a very defined, volatile culture with dynamic politics at play on the international stage and, whether you like to admit it or not, those elements go into the creation of art, which is why I include the political elements in my interpretations.
Thank you, have a nice day.